Analytical devices such as chromatographs, spectrophotometers and mass analyzers are commonly connected to an analytical device control server for controlling the analytical device and performing data collection.
Previously, an analytical device and an analytical device control server would generally be connected in one to one fashion using a cable such as RS-232C. However, this involves the problem of high costs due to the need to provide an analytical device control server for each analytical device and the inconvenience that the analyst needs to specially go to the location where the analytical device is installed to manipulate and control it.
In light of this situation, in recent years, systems have become common wherein a network communication module is incorporated into the analytical device, analytical device control server, etc., in order to perform monitoring and control of the analytical device from a remote terminal via a network.
In this sort of networked analytical device control system, in addition to the analytical devices (normally, multiple devices) and analytical device control server, a terminal computer for issuing analysis instructions and analyzing the results of analysis, a system control server for controlling the entire system, etc., are connected over a network, and various types of data are exchanged via the network.
In a networked analytical device control system, various types of devices are connected to each other, so if a problem occurs in one place in the system, there is a high likelihood that other analyses and data processing will be affected. Thus, it is important not just to configure the entire system so that problems will be unlikely to occur, but also to configure the system such that, in the event that a fault occurs, the fault can be detected and recovered from as quickly as possible.
An example of a system which allows rapid recovery from faults is the system described in Patent Literature 1. In this system, an analytical device control server transmits analytical parameter information pertaining to the settings of the analytical device at a set timing to a data management server, and the analytical parameter information is saved on the data management server. Based on this configuration, in the event that some sort of fault occurs in the analytical device control server and analytical parameter information is lost, the analytical parameter information saved on the data management server is transmitted to the analytical device control server once the fault is resolved, thereby allowing rapid fault recovery of the system as a whole.
(Patent literature 1) Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication 2008-158934
In conventional analytical device control systems, including the invention described in Patent Literature 1, analysis data, which is the result outputted from the analytical device when analysis is carried out, is held on the analytical device control server, and is transmitted from the analytical device control server to the data management server, etc. and saved whenever one or a predetermined number of analyses has been completed.
In this sort of system configuration, when a fault occurs in the analytical device control server during execution of analysis, update of analysis data information stored moment to moment in the analytical device control server may terminate mid-way or the analysis data itself may be lost. In such cases, even if the analytical device was functioning normally, the need arises to stop the operation of the analytical device and rerun the same analysis again. This entails the effort of reloading the sample and inputting an instruction to execute the analysis again, so there is the problem that losses occur in terms of time and costs. Furthermore, in cases where the quantity of sample is small or where the sample is valuable, situations may be envisioned where the act of rerunning an analysis under the same analytical parameters is itself problematic.
Based on the foregoing, a system is strongly desired which would allow the execution of an analysis to be continued without losing analysis data even if a fault occurs in the analytical device control server.